Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Most Pagans will tell you they work in magic but when you look at how they live that would seem at odds with the claim. Often they are struggling just to get by, constantly online begging spells to fix this or that in their lives, living in the shadows afraid family and friends will discover they are Pagans.

First understand this, a life devoid of challenges is devoid of learning. You cannot expect things to be handed to you on a platter because you are "magical" because the reality is you are not and no amount of witchcrap books, Pagan bling and teenaged spirited spell work is going to change that. Far too many become involved in Paganism seeking personal power over what they see lives of powerlessness.

What is lacking is spirituality, working with the Divine principles of the Universe regardless of how you name that, working for goals beyond your own petty desires. When you set out to achieve (manifest) a large goal you should expect large challenges along that way, that is how the Universe works for if that was easy, everyone would be doing it and few actually are. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction is not just a principle of physics, it is an expression of the old idea of standing in balance and moving the point of balance or restoring it will require work.

Can you stand outside your own ego and see the world as a semi detached observer? Including your own life? Because if the answer is no, then you cannot work magic or manifest into the world. If hardship brings on choruses of "woe is me" or "life is unfair" you are failing to see you might have lessons to learn in this turn on the wheel you are refusing to learn. Instead of woe is me, look for the lesson.

Change your goals and you change your life, that is magic. Work with the Universe instead of against it and maybe you can change at least part of the world. Strive for balance and see what you can actually manifest.

Many people have told me how hard my own life has been but I do not see it that way. I strive for large goals and thus face large challenges but although I am poor by most people's standards, my life is rich by my own standards. My own work is far from done and no doubt I shall face many more challenges before it ends but it is a good life, largely other directed but provides me with what I need mainly as a side benefit of a goal to manifest into the world a place of healing, for those to learn and rebuild their lives and to demonstrate how to live in harmony with the Universe. Every time I faced major challenges along the way there has been no shortage of those telling me to give up, that what I was trying to do was impossible, that you cannot fight city hall. And yet here I am.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

With more and more Pagans being solo these days and buying most of their Pagan bling online, the former gathering places of brick and mortar metaphysical bookstores are becoming fewer and fewer than in the past. Time for the new model to emerge of physical centres set up as central Temples and places to come to workshops and do research like the Maetreum and the New Alexandrian Library project in Delaware. Unlike the bookstores these places for practical reasons are in rural settings rather than the more urban former bookstores.

Most forms of Paganism came from rural roots and it is time to return to those roots for so many reasons.

Setting up such a project takes time, planning and a few very dedicated visionaries with charitable hearts. Pagan centres that failed in the past did so for fixed reasons, failure to pay as you go, ownership by individuals rather than non-profits, expecting to raise large overheads by community donations and overlooking that as Pagans, our efforts need to be as green as possible. They need to be as inclusive as possible of other Pagan paths and when combined with community housing they can provide a much improved standard of living for folks with limited means willing to work for the good of all. This is what Paganism looked like in the pre-Christian era and must look like again for the sake of the planet and each other.

You start by incorporating as a religious non-profit and then applying for IRS 501(c)(3) status. You then locate property bearing in mind that if you incorporated you might be able to get the property donated for someone's tax write off. Don't try to make it all happen full blown out of the gate, be realistic and start small scale. Do look into tiny houses remembering that you can build them yourself. Don't be afraid to ask help from those who are doing already or even by lending a hand with projects already underway as a sort of mentor-ship.

There is built in resistance from some in the Pagan communities, ignore that and understand the greater Pagan communities probably will not provide much in the way of donations.

Paganism is at a crossroads right now and the choices are into the shadows once again and eventual erasure or standing proud and doing and manifesting your beliefs into the real world. The choice is yours but those of us manifesting are going on with or without you.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

I tend to avoid the Pathos Pagan blog because it feels like worthless ramblings so much of the time but recently a blog entry there crossed my news-feed titled “Thou Shalt Not Judge” (and why this is a problem)" written by John Halstead, who styles himself the Allergic Pagan and includes this definition of naturalistic Pagan in his article:

"As the term is used here, Naturalistic Pagans includes Humanistic Pagans, Atheistic Pagans, Atheopagans, and other non-theistic Pagans."

The article is all about questioning the validity of the experiences of other Pagans. The problem he fails to grasp is that a non-theistic Pagan is not a Pagan at all but an atheist, a perfectly good word that does not attempt to appropriate an umbrella term for various RELIGIONS and fits him to a "T".

Frankly, as a life long practising Pagan in her mid sixties (meaning I have been a Pagan almost as long as Wicca has been a religion) I am fed up with those who are clearly self declared atheists claiming membership as Pagans when they are nothing of the sort. Words matter, their definitions matter. Halstead bemoans trouble communicating with Pagans while failing to see he isn't even using the same damn language making actual communication impossible.

It's bad enough that John and Jane Q. Public confuses Wicca and Paganism as being the same when Wicca is a mere subset of Paganism and a Gardner come lately one at that, but trying to include atheism under the same umbrella stretches the cloth way the hell past the breaking point. You want to hang with Pagans because we can be a fun free-wheeling group, fine but if you are an atheist, you are NOT a Pagan yourself. If your motive is playing with religious trappings without actually believing, go join the UUs, they actually have a place for you to do that.

Lately a lot of so called Pagans have tried to define Paganism. They need to consult historians. Pagan used to mean country dwellers until the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. It was Emperor Julian who redefined the word to capital P Pagan to mean those devotees of the non Abrahamic religions, the operative word here being religions. Julian was an initiate of the Cybeline religion who also wrote several important works on Cybele, Magna Mater, the Great Mother. We Cybelines thus have a greater claim to title "Pagan" than most neo-Pagans can claim.

And we modern Cybelines call foul and say enough is enough. Stop appropriating our identity.

Postscript: John apparently has momma issues he is trying to work out through me. He mined my mostly friends only Facebook account, spammed the hell out of this entry with nonsense and in general is displaying what I call Mysogynistic Deranged Male Syndrome which you normally only see in 18-24 year old males living in their momma's basement Nice job giving this lunatic a blog Patheos. His fear of an empowered Crone is beyond evident.